So after sand blasting and parkerizing the engravings weren't that visible any more. So I ordered this small engraving pen from Amazon for $10 and after 15 minutes it looked like this.

The parkerizing didn't come out as dark as I like and I am thinking of painting the gun but I was worried the engravings wouldn't show up any more. Now if I paint it I can just go over them one more time to clean it out. Looks great to me.

So I wasn't real satisfied with the spotty parkerized look and after I saw how good the engraving would turn out I decided to "pull the trigger" and refinish the gun.
I am real happy with the look and it should be quite durable though unorthodox.
After the paint hardens I will redo the engraving again and clean the paint out and post another closeup shot. But this is my result today.

Very nice. I would do my maadi but I like the original look on mine. Not to thread jack but does anyone know what the scribe says?

I think what I ended up with is pretty close to what the gun would have looked like new. My barrel and receiver were virgin metal and the parkerizing looked quite spotty as you can see in some of my photos. If I could have ended up with a more even park job I wouldn't have gone the paint route. But I used this paint before on suspension pieces when restoring old cars and it is very durable and quite hard. After some wear and a little age it should look just right.
Right now it looks like a new gun. Which isn't bad either.

Great job. Did you end up doing a electochemical etching or were those Egyptian parts that already had the markings?
My first AK was from an Egyptian military kit. I just recently had my family out of state cut up my junk civilian export Maadi then ship me the parts. I rebuilt it on a CA legal receiver, did the electro chemical engraving of the arabic selector markings on the receiver but left the MISR-10 markings on the rear sight base. Built up the bayonet lug with weld beads then ground it down to retain a bayonet again, then put a muzzle brake on the barrel (the clinton era ones often had threads shaved off). Then put scope rail on as well. Refinished a Romanian buttstock and got rid of the civilian export version stock. Not to mention the MISR 10 was headspaced too tight also, so redid that. But at least I get a gun with an Egyptian barrel out of the deal, looking at it from an optimist point of view.
The first AK I built from the egyptian kit was all arabic numbers matching kit.
I want to electro chemical engrave arabic markings on the rear sight leaf of the old MISR 10 kit also. Used virgin Romanian barrel which was pretty loose fit in trunion but got it headspaced right and pinned.

I used brownells alumahyde semi gloss black to get the original glossier black that my parts kit had. It worked out nicely. Parked it, kept myself from greasing the surface, the went right to first paint. The park worked well as a strong kind of primer.
What kind of scope did you go with? what model/power and how do you like it? 7.62 bdc?

The scope is POSP 8x42 D PRO, Independent Focus, 400m 7.62x39 BDC Simonov Rangefinder
It is a great scope. They are $299 plus shipping but I found a barely used one for $200 shipped. And it looks the part.
The paint I used is very durable as it is generally used for car suspension parts. And I had it on hand from working on classic cars. It is called Zerorust. I looked into the Alumahyde and others but decided to give this a try. The park gave a great base.

Very nice. I would do my maadi but I like the original look on mine. Not to thread jack but does anyone know what the scribe says?

On the rear sight base it says something to the effect of "CAL 7.62X39mm" and then the bottom part says something like A.R.E. which stands for "Arab republic of Egypt." Then the trunion it says "1988 1387378". Hope this helps. I used to live a few miles from the Maadi factory in Maadi, Egypt. My dad was military and we lived there for a few years. I am fairly new to AK's but I think i got a good start into them. My first one was a Two rivers arms Tabuk M70. My 2nd one is a Norinco MAK90 and at the moment I am having a Maadi built. I have been into AR's for the last few years and so happy to have dipped into the AK market. It's like one isn't enough!